A+Guide+To+Local+SEO

6 Online reviews play a huge part in the modern customer’s journey Earning reviews is a necessary part of any modern marketing strategy. But where should you get started if you want to take control and make the most of the consumer’s voice? Let’s talk about the top review platforms, and the best way to leverage them.

6 1. GOOGLE MY BUSINESS Google My Business (GMB), the most recent incarnation of what was previously called Google Places and Google Local, is the starting point for any online review marketing strategy. Ratings here determine your star rating in Google Maps results, as well as in the Google Local Pack, the list of Maps results that show up when users perform a local search. Reviews are the most important factor in determining where local businesses show up in Google search results, and Google My Business is the source the company trusts the most for these reviews. And if you think this doesn’t affect you because your business is online instead of local, you’re wrong. In one study that involved 30,000 sites, investing in reviews increased organic traffic from 5,500 to 8,000 in nine months. But knowing that your Google profile needs reviews and actually earning them are two different things. It should go without saying that an excellent product and superb customer service are a must here. A strong emphasis on customer service should be reiterated, since bad customer service is more likely to lead to a review than positive customer service is. In addition to thoroughly vetting your customer service and developing the best product you can, there are additional steps you can take to get the most out of Google My Business.

6 Let’s start with the obvious: you should set up a Google My Business profile, rather than let it sit unclaimed: • Go to https://www.google.com/business/. • Select or create the Google account you want to be associated with your business. • Enter your name and address to search for your business. • Click on the appropriate location. • Click “Mail me my Code.” Google needs to verify your ownership of the physical location of your business. This is the simplest way to do it. • Add high-quality photos to your profile, with an emphasis on what aspects of your business and your products can be communicated most effectively through visual media. • Update all fields and descriptions and deck out your profile with the same care you would apply to your own website.

6 Now you will need to encourage your customers to leave you a review, and the most effective way to do that is to provide them with a direct link to the place where they can review your business. Here’s how: • Go to the PlaceID Lookup Tool. • Put your business name in the “Enter a location” field. • Click your business name. If you have trouble, enter your location. • On the map, beneath your business name and above your location, is your Place ID. • Copy your Place ID and paste it over “<place_id>” in this URL: https://search.google.com/local/ writereview?placeid=<place_id>. • Visit the link and it should take you to a page where a Google review form will pop up. This is the link you will need to share with customers at common interaction points to encourage them to leave a review, especially during interactions where you have reason to believe you have a satisfied customer on your hands. A Few More Tips for Getting GMB Reviews • Integrate your Google My Business review link into your email marketing campaigns. Use your email signature to ask your customers to leave reviews. • Segment your audience and look for correlations between quantifiable interactions and customer lifetime value, and request reviews from those in your audience who are the most likely to be long-term customers. • Make it a part of your training to teach all customer- facing staff to ask for reviews from customers, especially where customers seem to be satisfied.

6 • Where providing a direct link isn’t possible, have ready- made materials to teach customers how to leave reviews. • Write personal emails that request reviews. The context of the personal email should make it clear that the email is not mass produced. 2. INDUSTRY-SPECIFIC REVIEW SITES While industry-specific review sites don’t directly impact your star ratings in Google Maps and Google’s local search results, they do impact your rankings in search results, and star ratings in non-local search results are often visible before clicking through. On top of that, 97 percent of customers say they’re influenced by customer reviews. On every measure, the more reviews available, the better, which is why you want to earn as many reviews in as many places as possible, provided your products and customer service are meeting the expectations of customers. Irate or irritated customers are the most likely reviewers – and they can do serious damage to your brand reputation. So it’s important to make an effort to encourage reviews from a more representative sample of your customer base. Industry-specific review sites are sites built for or usually used within specific industries, such as Yelp for restaurants and TripAdvisor for hotels. You can use the tips discussed above for earning Google My Business reviews and simply apply them to these other platforms.

6 You can find a list of industry-specific review sites here and here, but you can and should also find industry-specific review sites by performing Google searches for: • [your industry name] reviews/ratings • [your competitor name] reviews/ratings The list of industry-specific review sites you will come across will be far larger than any list of review sites you should point customers to in a single email or interaction. It’s important to be focused in deciding which review sites to send customers to. If you feel it’s important to send customers to a wide range of review sites to avoid low numbers or poorly representative scores on some sites, this is best accomplished by rotating your review links rather than by overloading customers with too many options.

6 3. PRODUCT-REVIEW SITES Product review sites are third-party sites designed to help companies earn reviews while vetting them for accuracy. Because customers are more likely to leave a review when they know it will be vetted and published by a third party, and since customers are more likely to trust these reviews than those selected and perhaps manipulated by the company itself, reviews on these sites are more likely to lead to conversions and positive brand sentiment than reviews on your own site using your own native system. Of these, Trustpilot is arguably the go-to starting point – sort of the Yelp of product- review sites – in large part because Google trusts them enough to include their product ratings in the Google Shopping ads. The platform is “open,” meaning that the reviews aren’t modified or moderated to give brands a biased positive score, so they are likely to positively influence both brand perception and search engine rankings in the long term. One of the most helpful features a third-party review platform can bring to the table is the ability to incorporate reviews directly on your site (here’s how to do that with TrustPilot specifically). A good product-review site will also include the Schema markup necessary to get your star ratings listed in the Google search results, and have enough trust built with the search engine to increase the likelihood that those star ratings will be visible. Taking advantage of product-review sites allows you to take ownership of the story surrounding your brand and be a part of the conversation. If you’re concerned about the fact that authentic reviews will inevitably point an imperfect picture, consider the following stats from Bazaarvoice:

6 • Product page visitors who read and interact with online reviews have a 58 percent higher conversion rate. • When a site goes from having zero reviews to having 30, it can result in a 25 percent increase in orders. 100 reviews can result in a 37 percent increase. • As we discussed above, review volume has a stronger positive impact o sales than review score, with scores in the 4.2 to 4.5 range typically performing better than higher scores (which generally have fewer overall reviews). • Adding user reviews typically leads to a 15 to 25 percent increase in organic search traffic. 4. SOCIAL MEDIA The introduction of Facebook Local has solidified the need for brands to consider social media not only as a marketing outlet but as a place where customers review businesses. Everything we discussed above applies to social media as much as it does to Google My Business, industry-specific review sites, and product review sites, but there are a few additional things to take into consideration:

6 Share Customer Reviews Social media isn’t just a place where reviews are earned; it’s a place where reviews can be shared. The key is to do so tactfully. When you share, retweet, post, and pin reviews your customers have left, it’s important to do so in a way that is more about that individual customer and less about the brand. Social media is a place where people go to keep up with their friends and loved ones, so it’s important to respect the platform for its proper use. Respond to Online Reviews on All of Your Platforms This plays an important part in how your customers feel they will be treated, but this is doubly true of social media. The word “social” is there for a reason. Customers expect you to be part of the conversation. It’s important to be proactive – but not defensive – in responding to negative press. Also, it’s important to recognize that social media responds better to actions, stories, and events than it does to words. Resolve Customer Issues Publicly on Social Media If you’re asking a customer to please contact customer support and take the conversation offline, onlookers will wonder what you’re trying to hide.

6 There are obvious lines that shouldn’t be crossed, such as revealing personal information, but publicly acknowledging a customer’s needs and treating them respectfully are important actions. Although you should never give in to unreasonable demands, you should demonstrate how customers can expect to be treated by you. CONCLUSION User reviews play a crucial role in modern brand perception, and no marketing strategy can be considered successful without successfully addressing them. While brands can’t control the content and sentiment of reviews, they can encourage a more representative and beneficial dialog by working with their customers to increase the number of reviews and the diversity of opinions. These actions have been shown time and again to increase sales. Do not neglect what you have learned here if you hope to master the art of branding in the years ahead.

7 CHAPTER 7 HOW TO COMPLETELY OPTIMIZE YOUR GOOGLE MY BUSINESS LISTING Samuel G. Hollingsworth Director of Search at Elevation Ten Thousan

7 To achieve digital marketing success by leveraging a location- based strategy, most seasoned SEO professionals start at the same place: creating a Google My Business listing. And for good reason. Google My Business (GMB) – the free tool from Google that helps business owners manage their online presence across the search engine and its growing portfolio of utilities – offers the greatest impact for brands seeking local exposure. Features like Google’s Local Search results (shown in the screenshot below), which break out with a list of nearby businesses and much of the pertinent information needed to find a specific business (e.g., address, business hours, category, reviews) and potentially buy something, further emphasize the need for a GMB listing for both new and established businesses.

7 Google’s Knowledge Graph also utilizes verified Google My Business information to help generate details for its database about businesses and related entities that are relevant to specific searches. Once a new listing is created, a Google Maps location is then generated that synchronizes with traditional Google Search for easy access and searchability. It certainly helps that the clear majority of organic searches come from Google (around 90 percent for worldwide search engine market share), further illustrating the value of a GMB listing. Use this guide to ensure you’ve completed your Google My Business listing correctly, and optimized all possible facets of the tool to get the most leverage for your business on Google and third-party platforms that use the Google Maps API to generate location information for users.

7 BASICS OF GOOGLE MY BUSINESS If digital marketing is a somewhat new endeavor for you and your business, there are some basics to recognize to ensure you fully understand Google My Business and the value it offers. First off: yes, using Google My Business is free. And, no, a GMB listing doesn’t replace your business’s website. Google My Business complements your existing website by giving your business a public identity and presence with a listing on Google, the most popular search engine in the world. The information you provide about your business can appear in Google Search, Google Maps, and on Google+. If you’ve previously used certain Google tools to complement your business, or your business has been operating for a while, chances are your business is already listed on Google My Business. Google Places for Business and the Google+ Pages Dashboard were the best ways to manage your business information previously, but both have automatically upgraded to Google’s universal platform, Google My Business. STARTING YOUR GOOGLE MY BUSINESS LISTING First step to getting your Google My Business listing up and running is to actually conduct a Google search to ensure your business doesn’t already have a GMB listing.

7 If your business has been around for a while (several years or more), it’s likely it already has a GMB listing and you just need to claim it. Once successfully claimed, you can manage the information just as if you started the GMB listing yourself years previous. Head over to the Google My Business page for adding and claiming GMB listings and enter your most important business information (business name and address) to ensure your business doesn’t already have a listing that you need to claim. If there is already a listing for your business, it will notify you. It may also notify you that someone else already claimed your business. If that happens, follow these steps.

7 Fill out the remaining input boxes with your business details, ensuring everything is accurate and grammatically correct (capitalize your business name, street names, etc.), Be sure to find the best relevant category for your business (there are a lot of variations to choose from). The last option listed asks if the business being created delivers goods or services to customers at their location. This is valuable for many businesses that operate away from their brick-and-mortar headquarters and, typically, at the home or business of the customer (cleaning services, construction companies, pest control, other home services, etc.). ADD OR EDIT SERVICE-AREA BUSINESS DETAILS To add or change your service area details: Sign in to Google My Business and make sure you’re using “card view.” If you’re viewing your locations as a list instead of cards, switch to card view by clicking the cards icon on the right side above your locations. • Choose the listing you’d like to manage and click “Manage location.” • Click Info from the menu. • Click the “Address” section. • In the window that appears, select “Yes” next to “I deliver goods and services to my customers at their locations.” • Enter your service area information. You can set your service area based on the ZIP codes or cities that you serve, or in a given area around your location.

7 • Select the box next to “I serve customers at my business address” if you want your complete address to appear on Google and your business location is staffed and able to receive customers during its stated hours. • Click Apply to save your changes. VERIFYING YOUR GOOGLE MY BUSINESS LISTING Once you have submitted your business info and your service area (if applicable), you’ll need to verify your listing. This is crucial for the visibility and performance of your business listing.

7 It’s probably easiest to verify your listing by mail. By doing so, Google knows the address you’ve provided as a business address exists and you receive mail there. This helps Google weed out the false listings that will only misdirect users and derail the usefulness of Google Search and Maps, among other tools. It’s important to recognize that Google won’t display your business or its edits until the business is verified. You also can’t access any page insights/analytical information or business reviews. Verification typically takes less than a week, in which Google will send you a verification code postcard that, once you receive, you verify with the enclosed code and your business will officially be live. PUBLISHING YOUR GOOGLE MY BUSINESS LISTING It’s important to use all resources Google My Business offers within its listing details to get the most out of your business locations. Some basic but crucial tips for optimizing your listing: Enter Complete Data for Your Listing Local search results favor the most relevant results for searches, and business offering the most detailed and accurate information will be easier to serve in search. Don’t leave anything to be guessed or assumed; make sure your listing communicates with potential customers what your business does, where it is, and how they can acquire the good and/or services your business is offering.

7 Include Keywords Just like traditional website SEO, Google uses a variety of signals to serve search results, and including important keywords and search phrases to your business listing will be incredibly helpful, especially since your business website is listed directly within your GMB listing. Keep Business Operating Hours Accurate It’s important to enter your business hours, but equally important to update them whenever they change. Google offers the ability to customize hours for holidays and other special events, and it should always be used to keep your site accurate and users happy. Add Photos Photos help business listings’ performance more than most business owners and marketers probably expect. Businesses with photos on their listings receive 42 percent more requests for driving directions on Google Maps and 35 percent more click-throughs to their websites than businesses that without photos, according to Google. (Keep reading for more GMB photo tips.) Manage & Respond to Customer Reviews Interacting with customers by responding to their reviews illustrates that your business values its customers and the feedback that they leave regarding it. Positive reviews are going to have a positive effect on potential customers when researching your business, but they also increase your business’s visibility in search results.

7 Encourage customers to leave feedback by creating a link they can click to write reviews for your business. PHOTOS FOR YOUR GOOGLE MY BUSINESS LISTING The most important piece of imagery in your GMB listing is obviously your profile photo. There likely won’t be an image that gets more exposure, and there likely isn’t one that will have more of an impact either. Your business profile photo should not be the brand logo itself, but of something appealing and encompassing of the brand, what it stands for, and/or what it offers. Other types of images that should be added to your GMB listing are: • Logo image: Google recommends businesses use their logo to help customers identify your business with a square- sized image. • Cover photo: Cover photos should really showcase a brand page’s personality. It’s the large photo featured at the top of the brand’s Google+ page, it will always be cropped to fit a 16:9 aspect ratio. • Additional photos: Other, different kinds of photos are used to spotlight features of your business that customers consider when making purchasing decisions. These photos will differ and are dependent on the kind of business you manage. These photos may include the goods and/or services your business offers, business staff working and/or assisting customers, the interior and exterior of the business, and other general photos that summarize the business and what it can do for its customers.

7 All photos should follow Google best practices: • Format: JPG or PNG • Size: Between 10KB and 5MB • Minimum resolution: 720px tall, 720px wide • Quality: The photo should be in focus and well-lit, and have no alterations or excessive use of filters. The image should represent reality. MONITORING YOUR GOOGLE MY BUSINESS LISTING INSIGHTS Over the last several years, Google has made tremendous strides with available analytical data for Google My Business listings. Now called Insights, Google offers businesses a different way to understand how customers interact with business listings, including: • How customers find your listing • Where customers find you on Google • Customer actions • Direction requests • Phone calls • Photos How Customers Find Your Listing This section of Insights shows how customers found you in a “Direct” search (they searched for your business name or address) versus a “Discovery” search (they searched for a category, product, or service that you offer, and your listing appeared).

7 These sections have the following labels in bulk insights reports: • Total searches • Direct searches • Discovery searches Where Customers Find You on Google This section shows how many customers found you via Google Search or Google Maps. Beside “Listing on Search” and “Listing on Maps,” you’ll see the number of views your listing received from each product in the timeframe you’ve selected. According to Google, “Views” are like “impressions” on other analytics platforms. To see how many people found you on a particular product on a particular day, place your cursor over the appropriate segment of the graph on the day you’re interested in. These sections have the following labels in bulk insights reports: • Total views • Search views • Maps views Customer Actions This section shows what customers did once they found your listing on Google. “Total actions” gives the total of the following types of actions that customers took on your listing:

7 • Visit your website • Request directions • Call you • View photos The following labels are available as reports in this reporting section: • Total actions • Website actions • Directions actions • Phone call actions Direction Requests This part of Insights uses a map to show where people are that are requesting directions to your business. Your business location is identified on the map and some of the most common spots that people request directions to your business from are shown. It even breaks the total number of direction requests down by city or neighborhood. Phone Calls This section shows when and how often customers called your business via your listing on Google. At the top of the section, “Total calls” gives the total number of phone calls for the selected time frame. The graph offers the ability to view trends by phone calls by either day of the week or time of day. This lets marketers and business operators know when customers are most likely to call after seeing your GMB listing.

7 Photos Lastly, GMB allows you to examine how often your business’s photos are being viewed with the “Photo views” graph and “Photo quantity” graph. There are also lines on the graphs that compare your business’s photo data with photo data for other businesses similar to yours. Section of this reporting component includes bulk insights for: • Total owner photos • Owner photo views • Total customer photos • Customer photo views

This sponsored chapter was written by ReachLocal. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own. Make Your Local Website Voice Search Friendly! Sponsored Chapter by Liz McConomy, Director of Marketing at ReachLocal Remember when “marketing” and “digital marketing” were two separate entities? You know, the days when having separate “online” and “offline” strategies were the norm? Oh, how times have changed. Forget digital marketing – omnichannel marketing is today’s new normal and has opened countless doors for brands of all sizes to bridge their brick-and-mortar and ecommerce efforts. What was once “online vs. offline” is now “online-and-offline”. Omnichannel marketing has introduced businesses and consumers alike to the notion of reducing friction at every touchpoint. No matter where your customer is on their buying journey – they want to access your information seamlessly. Brands at the top of their game are not only answering the needs of their customers immediately – they are doing it in a way that’s consistent and personalized. Want to get there? Then you need to put one thing into your marketing planning list: voice search and all it entails.

It’s the 2019 equivalent of being mobile-friendly – the longer you wait, the further you’ll get behind. Don’t lose your advantage! Stay ahead by thinking about voice search in the context of the always-evolving customer journey. Consider the following: 65 percent of smart speaker owners say they wouldn’t go back to life without a smart speaker. Voice commerce sales are expected to reach $40 billion by 2022. 52 percent of smart speaker owners want information about deals, sales, and promotions from brands. All of this leads to one overarching truth: those who have Google Home and Alexa in their home want to keep them and, if they aren’t already, will be shopping through them in no time. Saturdays now include pancakes, plus a side of getting your holiday shopping done early. All without viewing a single screen (because, you know, it’s Saturday)! So what next? How can marketers get ahead of the game? Call upon your web editors, copywriters, SEO pros, and content geniuses. It’s time to invest in a website that will answer back when your customers are trying to reach you. Follow the Path (and Guidelines) to Voice-Optimized Content It might feel like Google has a stronghold on marketers’ campaigns, but you have to give ‘em credit for the helpful information they provide, including their guidelines for content identified as “speakable” by structured data: You need headlines that are short, sweet, and informative (a copywriter’s dream scenario)

You should stick to 20-30 seconds of content per section (or two or three sentences) It isn’t as easy as crafting the perfect sentence and calling it a day, though. With Google, you need to get your content officially registered as TTS (text-to- speech) to get featured on Google Home. Don’t forget about these critical final steps once you’ve completed the hard research and content work! Voice Search Changes the Game for Local Voice search becomes even more interesting when it leaves home. Searches get closer to becoming purchases when location becomes involved. Local search marketing experts have long investigated how businesses can provide information to customers on-the-go. It’s common knowledge that local listings are the pillar of a strong local marketing strategy, painting a clear path to your customers’ stores on both search engines and navigation systems alike. Voice search brings us AI technology that can process spoken search queries in the context of the user’s location. The result? In addition to telling you what time they’re open until, Siri shares a map to get there and an image of the storefront. What does this mean for businesses?

You need landing pages with location references, reliable local listings with clean and consistent data, and integration with core directories to be sure your information is reliable and accurate across the board. Voice Search Is Here to Stay – So Get Talking! There has been a ton of debate on privacy infringement and smart speakers. You may have heard the report of a woman who had a private conversation recorded by her Alexa device, and it was randomly sent to another Alexa owner in Seattle. OK, so you and your friends discuss vacation plans over dinner, and the next day ads for flip-flops pop up on your phone. Is that enough to stop you from using these devices? With purchases for Alexa reaching the $20 million range as of Cyber Monday last year and Google Home devices selling every second since their release last fall, it doesn’t look like it’s stopping most folks. Bottom Line The sooner you align your marketing with the most important steps of the customer journey for your business, the sooner you’ll reap the benefits. If it isn’t already on your priority list, start making headway by considering how consumers search for your business online and make the connection to complete sentences and more contextual searches that could happen on voice search. Get started on this in the remaining months of the year, so you don’t get left behind in 2019. Otherwise, you’ll be asking, “Alexa, can you buy us more time?”

8 CHAPTER 8 9 ESSENTIAL LOCAL SEO & LISTINGS MANAGEMENT TOOLS Maddy Osman SEO Content Strategist at The Blogsmith

8 An online presence is important for both local and global businesses, especially those with physical locations. It may seem slightly counterintuitive for a local business to focus time on developing their online presence, until you realize that this is precisely where their customers are making buying decisions. Businesses that want to optimize for local SEO can make a big impact with the right focus, as well as the right tools.

8 Listings management with these local SEO tools encompasses a wide range of features that include: • An automated listings finder, which allows users to determine additional directory listing opportunities (and ensuring consistency across all existing listings). • The ability to automatically update all listings information with a click. • Review management, which notifies businesses of new reviews. Some of these tools also include functionality for directly replying to customer reviews within the user interface. • Analytics tools. Some tools on this list narrowly focus on one of these features (such as ReviewTrackers, which specializes in review management), while others offer an all- in-one solution. Some of the best SEO tools on the market, such as Moz and SEMrush, have adapted their all-in-one SEO tools to include listings management as an optional add-on feature. Ultimately, the tool(s) you pick for local SEO are a function of your unique needs. The following represent the best options for each aforementioned listings management feature – as well as several all-in-one local SEO solutions.

8 LOCAL SEO & LISTINGS MANAGEMENT TOOLS 1. Whitespark Whitespark got its start as a web design agency, but now also offers SEO software tools that help businesses with local search marketing. The Citation Finder tool is Whitespark’s most popular offering. It helps you find the citation opportunities you’re missing so that you can improve relevant local search rankings. The tool is free to use for three searches/day and limited search results — perfect for those who are still exploring the tool. As of the publication of this ebook, paid subscriptions start at $17/month for 20 searches/day and unlimited search results.

8 Other notable Whitespark local SEO tools include: • Local rank tracker, which uses your precise location settings to give insight into your overall SEO performance. Similar to Ahrefs’ Rank Tracker, it lets you know how you stack up against your competitors and how you rank across popular search engines — as well as how you rank in different result types. Although Ahrefs gives you data regarding how you rank in terms of 13 different features (such as featured snippets and site links), it is more technically- focused. On the other hand, Whitespark is more tailored for business: it also allows you to track your social activity (Ahrefs only allows you to track tweets). • Reputation builder, which makes it easy to prompt customers (via email or SMS) to share a review on your review sites of choice (Whitespark supports over 45 online review websites). This feature also calculates your NPS (Net Promoter Score), a business indicator of your customers’ experiences with your business. • Review monitoring, which alerts you if and when you get a bad review, so that you can immediately take action.

8 2. Yext Yext provides a variety of products and solutions that can help your brand improve local SEO. Yext integrates with hundreds of directories to ensure that your business information and data are always up-to-date. Some of Yext’s most popular local SEO tools include: • Knowledge Manager: A single source of answers to common questions that consumers ask about your business, including your staff, store hours, locations, and promotions. Some of this data is automated and some of it you can add yourself. • Yext Pages: An easy system for updating listings, ensuring that the information provided is accurate. Yext Pages integrates with the Knowledge Manager to help give customers more information about the brand to help guide them down your sales funnel.

8 • Yext Listings: Take control of the information you share about your business with search engines and digital services, such as Facebook and Yelp. You can use this feature for scheduled and real-time updates, analytics, finding listing improvement suggestions, and setting up integrations with other tools. The Yext App Directory integrates with applications like Zapier, HubSpot, and Zendesk. • Yext Reviews: A system for generating reviews from your customers that you can then add to your website. It also makes it easy to monitor and respond to reviews in the PowerListings Network. Additionally, Yext’s services and solutions include: • Analytics: Collecting insights, activity, and data for easier reporting. • Duplicate listing prevention. • Data cleansing to keeps facts consistent. • Google My Business and Listings management.

8 3. ReviewTrackers ReviewTrackers is a customer review software tool that sends alerts regarding customer feedback on various review websites, making this information available in one useful dashboard. Using ReviewTrackers, you can solicit feedback from customers, monitor reviews from various sources (e.g., Google, TripAdvisor), and track location performance. ReviewTrackers is used by brands like Subaru, Midas, and American Family Insurance. At the time of publication, single location plans start at $59/month, while multi- location plans start anywhere from $10-$50/month per location.

8 4. Moz Local Moz Local is perhaps the most popular local SEO tool on this list. After being in business for over 10 years and trailblazing the SEO software market, you can trust in both their data and methodologies. Moz Local works for both small and enterprise businesses, ensuring that online listings are correct and consistent, which helps to boost website visibility. Using this tool, you need only put together a listing once – Moz automates the rest of the process for you. Moz works by sending your listings data to major search engines, apps, directories and business aggregators. The beautiful thing about this process is that if you ever need to edit your listing, it’s as simple as logging back into Moz Local to make a change – there’s no need to edit your listing on each directory individually. Using Moz Local, you’ll receive alerts when you receive new reviews on major platforms so that you’re empowered to reply to your customers in a timely manner. Moz Local syncs with Google My Business and allows you to directly respond to Google reviews.

8 Apart from the features that help boost your brand name in local search, Moz also gives you location-centric reports to help you track your growth and determine key consumer interactions on your listings. At the time of publication, pricing for Moz Local starts at $99/year — just note that this pricing doesn’t include access to their other popular SEO software tools.

8 5. Synup Synup is an all-in-one marketing software suite specifically tailored to help with local SEO. This all-in-one solution allows you to manage your listings, monitor your analytics, and create reports. Specifically, Synup facilitates unlimited listings updates and notifies you immediately when new reviews have been created about your business. Synup crawls over 200 local search engines and directories to catch inconsistencies. At the time of publication, Synup costs $30 per location for the first 25 locations, with pricing scaling down as you add on more locations.

8 6. Local SEO Checklist Unfortunately, none of these tools can fix glaring technical local SEO issues on your website, which is where Local SEO Checklist comes in. Powered by Synup, the free Local SEO Checklist details the various ways you can optimize your website for local search. Aside from the checklist, you can also use this website to: • Check if your Google My Business listing follows the correct guidelines. • Check if your website has the right schema markup for content. • Use the free scanning tool to audit how your business listing appears across 48 different websites. Search Engine Journal also offers a local SEO checklist for you to follow along with.

8 7. SEMrush Favored by brands such as eBay, HP, and Quora, SEMrush is a popular SEO and search analytics software tool. SEMrush provides users with website traffic information, keyword information (most ideal for paid search needs) and other SEO data that includes useful competitor information. Perhaps SEMrush’s most popular tools include their keyword research tool, backlink checker, and competitor analysis. SEMrush recently introduced their own listings management tool, launched in collaboration with Yext. Based on initial perceptions, it seems quite easy to use. You have to first input the data and find your location. The tool will present a list of your listings and their status for each directory website. After you make any necessary edits, SEMrush will take care of the rest – automatically updating your listings accordingly. To sign up for this new SEMrush feature, you’ll need an SEMrush plan (which starts at $99.95/month), then add $20/month per location.

8 8. BrightLocal BrightLocal is one of the most popular local SEO tools, used by more than 62,000 agencies, businesses, and freelancers for analytics and reporting functions. Top features of Bright Local include: • Customized location dashboard to easily monitor data. • Lead-generation tools to manage and reply to your leads in one place. The lead generation widget allows your visitors to create a personalized, branded local search audit for their business. Also available for marketing agencies: priority listing in the marketing agency directory. This feature helps you with visibility in up to four surrounding cities, alongside the BrightLocal stamp of approval. • Track organic, local, and mobile rankings. • Scan and audits directory sites to determine where updates may be necessary. • Google My Business and NAP audits. • Alerts for new online reviews. • Social analytics (Facebook and Twitter) and Google Analytics dashboard integrations. • White label solution for agencies. At the time of publication, prices start at $29/month for a single business.

8 9. Advice Local Advice Local is another listings-management tool that can compete with the likes of Yext for the most number of directories supported. That said, Advice Local’s advantage over Yext is that you can manually build out local citations while Yext uses an API. However, because of this, it takes a bit longer for Advice Local to get above an 80 percent score for local directory submissions and the information supported is limited to the basics of NAP (name, address, phone number). Additionally, like Moz, Advice Local is a complete all-in-one local SEO solution (unlike Yext, which is more directory-focused). At the time of publication, plans start at $15/month.

9 CHAPTER 9 A GUIDE TO LOCAL SEO FOR ENTERPRISES Adam Dardine Digital Manager at NordicClick Interactive

9 If digital marketing channels were items on a grocery checklist, paid search and traditional SEO would be the meat and potatoes. Local SEO, unfortunately, is too often the afterthought food that many “shoppers” at large enterprises forget to purchase. With the continued rise in mobile, local SEO is more important than ever because the two are synonyms. A recent study from Stone Temple states that 63 percent of all Google searches are mobile.

9 Why do enterprises view local SEO as a grocery checklist? In short, local SEO fails when businesses lack a well-structured plan. Common misconceptions include, “If I complete A, B, and C, then my local presence will improve” or “If we’re doing traditional SEO, local will fall into place.” Wrong. In order for local SEO to succeed, businesses must define what success looks like and develop and an ongoing plan that is scalable. While businesses of any size can fall susceptible to the “grocery checklist” mentality, it’s the large enterprise businesses that have the greatest risk of catching the disease. LOCAL SEO PROS & CONS OF LARGE ENTERPRISE Regardless of channel, large businesses have built-in advantages over small competitors including but not limited to: • Money. • People. • Access to industry tools. • Specialization. While these built-in resources certainly help, if ignored, the cons of larger companies with over 100 locations will outweigh the pros – especially with respect to local SEO.

9 4 OBSTACLES LARGE ENTERPRISES FACE WHEN PLANNING A LOCAL SEO STRATEGY 1. Ignorance Is Bliss If there’s never been a defined strategy across the organization, it may be difficult to earn buy-in from others. 2. Slow Decision Making Large enterprises are generally not as adaptive and flexible as small companies. Consequently, tasks that should be no- brainers, like claiming local listings, can draw out for months. I’ve seen business regret not having urgency with regard to claiming listings. Something as simple as changing phone numbers can result in local traffic falling off the map due to data inconsistencies. In drastic cases, unclaimed and outdated listings have caused Google My Business traffic to plummet by more than 50 percent.

9 3. ‘Bystander Effect’ Lack of defined roles coupled with the fact that the enterprise has many people on the marketing team will lead to the diffusion of responsibility and a lot of finger pointing. A common local task that falls victim to the “Bystander Effect” is review management. Who should be responsible for responding? Customer service? Store managers? Regional managers? The truth is, there is no right answer – pick one but make sure the job gets done. And make responsibilities clear. 4. Volume Volume is arguably the biggest obstacle to overcome. Let’s use the new Google Q&A feature as an example: 100 locations x 3 questions/month x 5 minutes per response = 25 hours/month. And that’s a conservative estimate that only accounts for one small component of local SEO. The good news is that a well-defined plan not only overcomes the obstacles listed above, but produces a successful and scalable local SEO strategy. Before we expand on actionable local SEO plans, it’s important to point out often overlooked first steps: • Obligatory Digital Marketing Goals: Define what success means for local SEO. Common objectives include increases in: • Foot traffic. • Views of store locator pages. • Clicks on Google My Business Listings. • Phone calls made to the store.

9 • Establish Roles and Responsibilities: Just like any other team effort, local SEO requires a team. To use a sports analogy, Aaron Rodgers needs his offensive line to follow through on their assignments just as much as a local SEO provider needs store managers to provide an above average customer experience. Below are five local SEO practices that will help you reach your business goals. Each section has been broken into: • Basic Practices: (In most cases, these should be implemented, but thought of as more of a baseline. In some sections, the baseline doesn’t exist, so I’ve listed what not to do instead.) Essentially, some enterprises do the basics and either think they’re done or choose to stick their head in the sand (See Local Link Building, Review Management, and Citation Management in the steps outlined below for examples). • Competitive Edge Practices: These will separate your business from the competition – if for no other reason than most, stick with the basic approach.

9 1. ON-PAGE LOCAL SEO Basic Practices • Include city and state in the title tag of all store locator pages. • Ensure store pages are indexed by search engines and display prominent clickable mobile elements like phone numbers. • Implement local Schema markup on all store locator pages. Competitive Edge Practices That Require Ongoing Management & Planning • Create and implement a plan for local content opportunities – these can be incorporated on a blog or directly on store locator pages to help differentiate hundreds of similar store pages. • For example, if you manage a store that sells baseball hats in Minnesota, create a blog post about a new hat collection and talk about how it can help shade the sun while you’re out enjoying all 10,000 of the state’s beautiful lakes during the short summer. That said, the content doesn’t necessarily even have to be about the products you sell. In fact, focus most content around anything but selling your product. Make it about something that’s useful and helpful to your customer/audience. • Take a disciplined and consistent approach to adding new content to your store pages. Content ideas include unique store photos, videos, store manager profiles, or other local city information that is related to your business.